(Credits: Far Out / Derek Russell)
Wed 2 July 2025 19:46, UK
No artist has a say in the popularity of their records. They can spend months trying to perfect the best songs they’ve ever made, but there’s no telling whether the record will resonate with people until people have it in their hands. And while most people revel in the idea of making blockbuster albums that catapult them right to the top of the rock and roll world, Don Henley knew to set expectations for himself that were more realistic than what everyone else envisioned.
Because, really, Eagles was more of an experiment than a band when they first got started. They had come together as the kind of ragtag team of country musicians from the California scene, and there was no telling if their success was going to last for a single, an album, or until the end of time. All Henley knew was that he and Glenn Frey made some great music together, and there was a good chance things could get even better once they left Linda Ronstadt’s backing group.
There was already a buzz around them making their handful of new songs, but no one was going to see something like Hotel California coming for a few years. Still, when listening to the band’s debut, they already had a certain amount of fire from the get-go when they started working in songs like ‘Take It Easy’ and ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ into the mix.
Henley would have his songwriting debut on ‘Witchy Woman’, but when everyone heard him sing, there was already something different at work there. Most people expected the kind of soaring harmonies given what Crosby, Stills and Nash had been doing, but when Henley opened his mouth, there was some magic in his vocal cords that made every listener want to hear his voice whenever playing the tunes over again.
Anyone in their right mind would have been thrilled to have an excellent record to their name at the time, but Henley remembered that he didn’t want the band’s debut record to be the massive success that it ultimately became, eventually saying in History of the Eagles, “The fact was that the success of the first album scared the hell out of us. Why me and some friends of mine who are just as good as a musician as I am, but it happened to me and it didn’t happen to them? I don’t know.”
It’s not like there wasn’t a little bit of regret there as well. As much as Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner had paid their dues working in bands like The Flying Burrito Brothers and Poco, respectively, it’s not like Eagles were opening doors for those bands, either. They were making their own path forward, and it turned out the world had a taste for only them at the top of the rock and roll pile.
But when looking at the history of country-rock, the biggest glossover during that time would have had to be Gram Parsons. He was the one who helped introduce country into rock and roll when he joined The Byrds and formed the Flying Burrito Brothers, so the fact that he passed away before he had the chance to see his albums take off in the same way Eagles’ records did is still one of the biggest losses in California music history.
Even if Henley took his place as a reluctant overnight sensation at the beginning of the band’s career, he was more than willing to say what he could while he still had the chance. If he was given the spotlight for a while, ‘Hotel California’ and ‘Desperado’ were proof that he was going to make every second of it count.
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